No decision yet on rally crash prosecution

A DECISION has not yet been made on whether a criminal prosecution will follow the horrific crash which crippled two spectators during the Knysna stage of a cross-country supercar rally last week.

Police spokesman Captain Malcolm Pojie said no one had been charged yet and that the docket would be submitted to the office of the Knysna senior state prosecutors for a decision.

Police are investigating a case of reckless and negligent driving after the driver of a yellow Lamborghini Superleggera lost control near the finish line of a time trial up Old Cape Road towards the Simola Country Estate in Knysna on Thursday.

The driver was one of more than 50 participants in the second Rogue Rally – a 2800km jaunt from Johannesburg to Cape Town for supercars. The rally ended in Cape Town on Saturday.

At about 2pm on Thursday, the driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a Toyota Prado and a Mercedes Vito parked on the side of the road.

A couple from Ravensmead in Cape Town – a 48-year-old man and his wife, 49 – were standing near the vehicles and could not move out of the way before impact. The couple, whose family requested that their names not be released to spare them additional trauma, suffered “multiple amputations on impact”.

“We are busy reviewing footage from all the cars in the rally to see if we can find out what exactly happened,” rally spokesman Jacques van den Bergh said.

The accident happened on the same twisty 2km stretch of road used for the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb event, which sees cars complete the distance in less than 42 seconds and reach speeds in excess of 240km/h.

The driver of the Lamborghini sustained only minor injuries. – Yolande Stander